Help me pick a stone handle?

[M&J]

Working on a fixed blade and was going through some of the rocks on hand. I've not used sodalite on a handle before. I've done several with llanlite and is one I like too.

If you were to pick one of these, which would you suggest?

[Rasmus Kristens]

On which knife? Can you show a picture?
Only based on look of the stone, I would choose the sodalite.

[Don Robinson]

I'll take them both. Thanks.

[M&J]

The sodalite it is, will be on this one. Originally it had zebra marble handles but I'd ground the bolster dovetail off slightly so it didn't line up, had to break the knife apart. Was the only piece zebra marble too.

[Rasmus Kristens]

Awesome. Lets have a look when the knife i finished :-)

Is the stone scales held by glue and the dovetail on the bolsters or do you also pin it? I can imagine peening hte pins is very risky?

[M&J]

I set the blanks up for a variety of bolster and handle options. In this instance the stone is held by the epoxy. I can drill them for pins and have done so on a few for additional indexing on setup. No peeing with stone, introduces stress for a fracture as you mention. Double bolsters are preferred for most stone handle scales. This also allows a slightly smaller cut of stone to be used.

[Rasmus Kristens]

It sounds incredible difficult to get a perfect fit! Very impressive, and it looks fantastic.
Have fun :-)

[M&J]

Is challenging, "fun" and in the end rewarding to complete the process. Stone takes more time and care to fit up and these experiences translate well across other works. First time I rubbed to a 2K finish, was very rewarding if not overly time consuming.

Like your wire wrapping. It gets better as we challenge ourselves in the craft.

[jimmontg]

I use a #30 or.128 carbide drill bit for the inset nut and a 3/32 carbide drill bit for the threads in addition to the epoxy. I also use diamond compound for polishing stone work. I used the diamond once to put a quick polish on a blade I had jeweled and I was sold. I now have several grits of diamond up to 18,000 grit. 5,000 grit puts a mirror polish on most steels and is great for lapidary too, I've found. I find the diamond compounds are much more aggressive and you can skip grits on the way to a mirror polish.

BTW if you finish by hand, you can get a near mirror polish on D2 tool steel, no high speed buffing. I put the compound on leather glued to sticks, but it is a rather tedious process as it obviously must be worked up to, but you can skip from 1500 to 3000 to 5000. I discovered this by lucky accident.

I buy my compounds from Boride Engineered abrasives as they have a huge selection of oil and water based products.

Here's the tiny loveless screws from Jephco Knifemaker Hardware.
http://https://shop.jephcosupply.com/Hardware_c4.htm

And here is Boride, who also have the best prices I've found for the Cratex products I use for jeweling.
http://https://www.borideabrasives.c...e/Default.aspx

[M&J]

Thanks Jim!! Will wander through all their goodies.

Cut the sodalite and it fractured. The marbling was fine but there was one section of solid blue that didn't heal well and from that transition was right where the split was. The resulting pieces are to small to use on the intended knife. Found some other jasper but it too has a running fracture. Would think that some of this stone is strong but it isn't.

[Rasmus Kristens]

aww to bad. Are you going to try with the llanlite then?

[jimmontg]

I only ever use real stone for spacers anymore as l find trying to cut up big slabs by hand hard to do. I do not have much lapidary equipment.
For a full handle I'd only use the recon stone and that is by request only as even the recon is brittle.

[M&J]

I'll take a pic of the stone selected as the replacement. I don't have an ID for it so will have to find out what it is. One aspect of stone that I enjoy is the slow pace. Not conductive when we need to get them done yet it is a patience situation.

Stone can be very frustrating like having MOP chip-crack. All that work and there it goes.

This azurite-malachite piece is from 2000. Gee, I wonder where it is now?

[M&J]

These were the choices in stone. Cut the other one because I have book matched slabs to use and it was slabbed at .130" thickness so less to grind down to maintain the pattern. I like the other jasper whatever it is but it has a fracture so getting big handles from it won't be possible.

edit the left one is "Brockman" jasper.

[ScotLorenzo]

The sodalite it's, can be on this one. To start with it had zebra marble handles anyway i might floor the support dovetail off to a couple degree so it failed to orchestrate, expected to break the sharp aspect remoted. Was the precept piece zebra marble too.
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